Replies

As you point out, a literal interpretation of the Genesis stories is problematic. The discrepancy between the measured age of the earth and the Biblical 6,000 year old earth is only one of those problems—there are many more. For instance, when Cain was cast out of the garden and was afraid that someone would kill him, who, exactly, was he afraid of? And when he ended up in the land of Nod—where did that come from, since at this point, Cain is the only living child of the first pair of humans? And so on. The only way Genesis makes sense is as a moral lesson

Well i have no problem with taking the bible literally. However the problem is that people add suppositions and traditions to what is written down.

For example Adam and Eve lived hundreds of years. The bible only lists three sons, Cain, ABel and Seth. Three kids in hundreds of years? That kind of defeats the purpose of go forth and multiply. But the problem isn't that the bible is wrong...the bible NEVER says that these were the only three kids. God inspired stories to be told that can benefit us...he didn't give a detailed history of everything. So Adam and Eve must have had hundreds of kids and the story of Cain slaying Abel could have taken after hundreds had been born and born their own kids. So by the time of Cain's wandering there could have been thousands of people concentrated in the vicinity of where Adam and Eve were originally.

So in the case of a young earth God never SAYS the earth is six thousand years old...BUT the history of the people HE chose to work with goes back about 6000 years biblically. What went before was buried under the waters described in Genesis 1.

For example Adam and Eve lived hundreds of years. The bible only lists three sons, Cain, ABel and Seth. Three kids in hundreds of years? That kind of defeats the purpose of go forth and multiply. But the problem isn't that the bible is wrong...the bible NEVER says that these were the only three kids. God inspired stories to be told that can benefit us...he didn't give a detailed history of everything. So Adam and Eve must have had hundreds of kids and the story of Cain slaying Abel could have taken after hundreds had been born and born their own kids. So by the time of Cain's wandering there could have been thousands of people concentrated in the vicinity of where Adam and Eve were originally.

I have a real problem with trying to do mental gymnastics in that manner to try to make Genesis a literal account when it clearly is not. It is very clear from Genesis that Cain and Abel were Adam and Eve's only two children at the time that Cain murdered Abel. It is also very clear that Eve only had her third child (another boy) after Cain was banished. There is also the fact that Adam and Eve, supposedly the first two humans (in a literal creation), only had sons, yet somehow those sons obtained wives. Any other interpretation of Genesis is diverging from the literal text.

Once you start to creatively interpret Genesis so as to try to believe it literally, you are, in fact, acknowledging that Genesis is *not* a literal account. And once you have acknowledged that, why not just accept that the scientific evidence that we scientists have been recording about God's creation is accurate, instead of performing yet more mental gymnastics to try to dismiss our observations in order to support a "literal" view of the Genesis creation stories?

If you accept that the purpose of the Genesis stories is to teach us morality, then there is no conflict between the scientific observations and religion. If you view Adam not as the first human, but as the first person to whom God revealed Himself (making him the first "born-again" person), then there is still no conflict. I'm not Catholic, but the fact that the Pope says there is no conflict between science and religion still means something.

Since God inspired stories to be told that can benefit us, it seems He may have meant for us to just pick those that we take literally or allegorically.